An American Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page A

a war.”
    She would not think of that moment when their lips had almost touched. When she’d wanted their lips to touch. It had been a moment of insanity.
    A modern girl kissed men—she had kissed a few. She’d known sizzling kisses. Her lips hadn’t even touched the duke’s, and the air had crackled like the aftermath of a lightning strike.
    Yet the man was insufferable.
    “Zoe, you must not antagonize the duke.” Mother’s large violet-blue eyes widened in panic. “Think of your father—it was his fondest dream that you be accepted in New York society. No one will turn up their noses if you have a title. No ballrooms will be barred to us; there will be no invitation list that does not feature our names.”
    The things that drove Mother seemed so trivial. They had been through a war. The world was a place of manufacturing, of making things—airplanes, telephones, motion pictures.
    That world had made Father a rich man—Zoe had grown up in Manhattan, after Father had made his money in steel. Columns and beams and rivets from his mills were used in most of the brand-new buildings that reached into the sky, and she knew a little of the ruthlessness that coup had taken.
    What did it matter that Zoe, as a debutante, had been purposely excluded from most balls or that when her family hosted them, people took malicious pleasure in not showing up?
    All that had mattered to her was following her heart. She’d fallen in love with Richmond DeVille, the famous and daring aviator. Richmond had taught her how to fly a plane. With him, she had touched heaven with silver wing tips. Every moment with Richmond had been filled with excitement and challenge. But they’d kept their relationship a secret, because Richmond had just got a divorce.
    On the day of his departure, flashbulbs had popped everywhere, but she and Richmond had found treasured private moments. He’d slipped a diamond ring on her finger. With tears of joy and excitement in her heart, she had wished him a safe voyage. She had waved at his airplane until it had disappeared over the ocean into the early-morning sky like a silver star winking out. Then she had sat by the wireless for hours and hours, waiting for the word he’d arrived.
    He hadn’t made it. Days later the wreckage of his plane was found. His body never was.
    Zoe snatched up a brush and smoothed her hair. “I don’t care if they do snub us. Daddy might have come from a shack with a dirt floor, but he made something of himself. The duke hasn’t even earned his advantages. He has them because of the luck of his birth. I don’t need to wear diamonds, Mother. Everyone in the dining room knows I have a fortune. Money gives us the only things worth caring about in the world now—”
    She was about to say the words freedom and independence, but in the large cheval mirror, she suddenly noticed how pale her mother was. She whirled.
    Mother put her hand over her heart and took shallow breaths. “I know why you are doing this, Zoe. I know you are marrying to help me.”
    Zoe rushed to her mother, suddenly feeling helpless. “It will be all right—”
    Mother trembled. “Oh, Zoe, I am so afraid. Those letters I received...they got downright threatening. If your uncle were ever to find out about that check, I’d be ruined. He would never forgive me. Brother-in-law or not, he would prosecute to the full extent of the law. I might end up in jail. I meant no harm by it. I was so certain I would be able to put the money back right away—”
    “He’s not going to find out. I’ll have access to my funds long before Uncle Hiram comes back. You made a mistake, Mother—” She said it softly and reassuringly, though she could not understand her mother. How could Mama have forged a check? How could she not have seen that would obviously lead to disaster? But recriminations would get her nothing but maternal hysteria, and that she couldn’t bear. “You will not go to jail,” Zoe said firmly.
    “But I